


The Ten Year Anniversary of Dumbledore’s Army

by Sandel



Series: The 'Well Enough' 'Verse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, Dumbledore's Army, Ensemble Cast, Gen, Post - Deathly Hallows, Warning: Mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-11 21:49:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandel/pseuds/Sandel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Hannah Abbott goes to the 10 year anniversary party of the founding of Dumbledore's Army. Half of the DA-members are in the middle of starting their families, which leads to a little chaos, and Hannah finds herself saving the day more than once. But she also has time to renew old friendships and even an old crush.</p>
  <p>---</p>
  <p>Entered in looneylizzie's <span class="u">Always Keep Fighting Challenge</span> at hpfanfictalk.com.</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before the Party

**Author's Note:**

>   
>   
>  Banner by easterlies at The Dark Arts forum.

At half past five in the morning, Hannah Abbott looked at her Dumbledore’s Army Galleon for the third time that day. The golden coin still showed the same old “05369874153117” serial number as it usually did. This wasn’t really a surprise, as the coin hadn’t heated up to indicate that a message had been sent, but Hannah still found herself disappointed. Again. She chuckled ruefully at herself.

Then she heard someone join in the chuckling and twirled around to find herself face to face with her boss, Tom the landlord, who’d come in from the back room carrying a stack of plates.

“Hardly anyone’s awake yet, lass,” Tom pointed out with a good-natured smile. “Keep your mind on your work and time will pass like nothing.”

He was right, of course; it wasn’t likely that any message would appear on the coin for many hours yet. Hannah put the Galleon back into the breast pocket of her robes, and stifled a yawn before she went back to setting the tables for the early breakfasters. The early mornings were one of the few things she _didn’t_ like about working at the Leaky Cauldron, but she’d happily brave a million early mornings rather than going back to the Ministry, so she still counted herself happy. And now she had a party to go to for the first time in longer than she cared to remember, so she counted herself happier still.

Well, Hannah _assumed_ she had a party to go to… About a month ago she had gotten an owl from Hermione Granger-Weasley saying to make save the date of the fifth of October, the ten year anniversary of the founding of Dumbledore’s Army, and to keep an eye on her old DA coin that morning.  Ever since then not a day had passed without Hannah wondering about how the anniversary would be observed. She had tried to get her boss to join in on her speculation, but Tom had stayed as tight lipped as ever. Even when she suggested that they would re-enact the battle of Hogwarts he’d just hummed noncommittally. It made Hannah miss Madam Rosmerta more than ever. If Hannah had still been working at The Three Broomsticks she was sure they would have been making wild guesses together.

* * *

Hannah had lost track of the time and even half forgotten about the whole DA anniversary-thing; she had something much more important to worry about. She was duelling a deep rooted wine stain on one of the tables, armed with a piece of cloth and the strongest scouring potion she could find. That was when warmth finally started to spread through her breast pocket. In her surprise she dropped her ‘weapon’, and all her stifled excitement bubbled up into her consciousness again. A glance at her Muggle wristwatch told her the clock was about half past ten. She fished the hot coin out of her pocket just as Tom came out from the inner room. He gave Hannah and her Galleon a surprisingly curious look.

“So, what’s it say, then?” he asked, his curiosity even more obvious in his voice.

Hannah looked at the miniature message that had formed where the serial number was on a regular Galleon.

“It says ‘VAULTED.V.6.00’… Huh, I didn’t know these things could do letters. And poor Luna made up this whole number code back in the War Year…”

But _of course_ Hermione Granger-Weasley could make the fake Galleons do letters if she wanted them to. When Hannah worked at the Ministry a troll had once gotten loose in the Archives Department, and afterwards Hermione had brought all the archives back to normal with a bunch of spells that she’d thought up on the spot.

“The Granger-Weasleys live at the Vaulted Villanette, do they not?” asked Tom.

“Yeah, and I guess we’re supposed to be there at six,” said Hannah.

The two of them smiled at each other. Then Hannah bent over to start scrubbing at the stubborn spot again, but before she could begin Tom gave an airy wave of his wand, and the spot disappeared.

* * *

At what she thought was six o’clock Hannah stepped out of the fireplace at the Vaulted Villanette and into a room in a state of complete chaos.

The upper part of the room looked fit enough for a party. On the wall opposite the fireplace hung a large picture of a badger, a lion and an eagle, clearly the work of Dean Thomas, now a famous artist. The lion and badger stood back to back with wands raised and the eagle soared above them with a wand in its claws. Around the painting, and all the way around the edges of the ceiling, there were large floating bubbles and dancing garlands in red, blue and yellow. A banner saying “Dumbledore’s Army 10 years!” in golden letters hung over a long table.

The lower part of the room, on the other hand, was a total mess. There were a jumble of shoes, books, feebly stirring garlands and several Weasleys Wizard Wheezes-contraptions that seemed to be malfunctioning. The long table was not set.

Hannah took a step into the chaos and put her foot into a green, sticky liquid that was slowly spreading across the floor. She grabbed a napkin from a large stack on the coffee table, and used it to thoroughly wipe the weird liquid off her shoe. Then she carefully vanished the napkin.

“Hello?” she called out, with a growing sense of mild dread.

At first there was no reply, but then…

“Merlin’s Knuts!” a woman’s voice shouted from further into the house a few seconds later.

The shout didn’t exactly seem like a response to Hannah’s greeting, but for want of any better idea for what to do Hannah decided to seek out the voice. The room she’d arrived in opened into a vaulted corridor that Hannah assumed was part of what had given the house its name. As she walked through the corridor a smell of something cooking grew stronger and stronger.

Soon she found herself peered into a kitchen. Inside, her former classmate and Ministry colleague Hermione Granger-Weasley was stirring a violently boiling cauldron. Small droplets of whatever she was making sprayed the kitchen floor and Hermione was cursing under her breath.

Hannah awkwardly cleared her throat. Hermione turned to her with an irritated look which then turned into utter surprise.

“Oh, hello Hannah, you’re early!” she said.

Early? Then she realised what had happened. She had taken her wristwatch off to take a nap, and then she hadn’t put it back on because it wasn’t nice enough for her dress robes. She’d kept time with her alarm clock instead... The alarm clock that  she’d turned back twenty minutes to give herself some extra time to muster the power to get out of bed in the mornings. _She was twenty minutes early._

“Oh no,” she exclaimed. “I’m so sorry, Hermione…”

She was about to explain her mistake when she took a closer look at the other witch. Hermione was wearing frankly pretty shabby muggle clothes, which were covered in the same stains as the floor. She had dark circles below her eyes, and while half of her hair fell in sleek curls down her back, the other half was a bushy mess. The hair reminded Hannah overwhelmingly of the half-decorated room she’d just left, and she had to stifle a giggle.

“Er… actually, maybe I can make it up to you. Why don’t you let me take over here, so you can go fix yourself up?” she said.

“Oh, _Hannah_ ,” Hermione said, looking at her like she was a Patronus. “But you don’t know what I’m making…”

“Oh, I’ll figure it out, I’m good at cooking. Don’t you worry.”

At that Hermione looked half ready to start crying of relief. She made as if to hug Hannah, thought better about her dirty clothing, and gave her a grateful handshake instead. Then she sprinted out of the kitchen and further down the vaulted corridor.

When she was gone, Hannah took some time to survey the kitchen. It was a complete mess. Luckily, her job had made her good at dealing with messes. She carefully put a shielding charm over her dress robes, and got to work. With a wave of her wand she reduced the fire under the cauldron, and with a slow lift she extracted enough of the soup inside to give it a taste. She thought it tasted pretty weird at first, but then she realized it was to be served cold. She cooled it and tasted it again, and realised that it actually was pretty good. It only needed a little more seasoning.

The soup was presumably to be a starter, and the main course some sort of meat with potatoes and sauce. But the potatoes stood forgotten and quite overdone on the stove, so Hannah made a quick decision that the guests would be served mashed potatoes instead. She charmed a masher to do her work for her and turned to the sauce. It tasted absolutely horrible, so Hannah decided to leave it to last, when she could give it her full attention. She open the oven door and found bacon wrapped and plum-stuffed pork loins, which she was sure would look and smell delicious if they weren’t frozen through. With an intricate but neat little spell that Tom had taught her she sped up the cooking process. And soon the kitchen started to fill with a lovely smell of bacon and plums.

As there were no sign of a dessert in the making that meant that it was time to deal with the sauce at last. Hannah took a deep sigh to steel herself and tasted it again. Still horrific. Hannah shivered from head to toe, and had to suppress a reflex to spit it back out. The sauce seemed to be made from a sophisticated recipe, but the execution was all but sophisticated. She made a valiant effort to redeem it with some cinnamon, soy and sugar but soon she had to admit defeat. She vanished the old sauce (not without a sense of relief) and started looking for ingredients for a simpler alternative that she could whip up in a few minutes.

* * *

With her new sauce boiling gently on the stove, Hannah went back to the room she’d first entered into to see if she could do something about the mess there. But when she got there the mess was nowhere to be seen; instead she found herself face to face with another old classmate. Ronald Granger-Weasley, dressed in sky-blue dress robes, was wrestling a fanged sock into a little beaded bag. He looked up when Hannah entered, and the sock broke free. It crawled towards the safety under the sofa with surprising speed, but Ron pounced on it, whipped out his wand, and hit it with a Stunner. It was clear he still had his Auror reflexes.

Hannah was trying to think of the right think to say to an old friend who you’d just watched duel a sock, but happily Hermione entered the room right then, with a “Look who showed up early and saved the day!”

Hannah blushed as Ron greeted her with a bear hug. Over his shoulder she glanced at the floor where the mysterious liquid that she had stepped in upon entering had been. The flooring still had a visible tinge of green, but she didn’t think she would have noticed if she hadn’t known where to look.  As they broke apart Ron saw where she was looking and hushed her quietly with a wink.

Meanwhile, Hermione was directing a beautiful lace cloth to float gracefully down upon the table and then she started to set out plates on it. As Hannah and Ron went over to help her set the table Hannah looked at the hostess’ new look. Hermione now wore a purple and magenta garment, halfway between regular dress robes and a Muggle dress, and while the left side of her hair was still significantly less sleek than the right she had slyly hidden most of it under the more defined curls.

Hermione’s intricate hairstyle made Hannah self-conscious about her own hair. She had put it in pigtails in honour of the Hogwarts-nostalgic occasion, and now she felt childish. She was glad she had at least braided shiny blue ribbons into them. That way her hair matched her blue and gold robes.

Maybe she’d given her clothes a self-consious look, or maybe Ron was just a secret legilimens, because just when Hannah needed it the most he said “You both look lovely,” with a big grin and a quick kiss on Hermione’s cheek.

Then he grabbed a box from the mantelpiece and gave it a small shake as he added “Mum insisted on giving us a bunch of home baked cookies, by the way.”

Hermione gave a relieved sigh.

“Harry was going to make his divine treacle tart, but then baby Albus decided to pop out and Harry got his hands full,” she explained to Hannah. “So we let the dessert responsibility over to George and Angelina instead, Merlin help us. Now we’ll at least have these cookies to serve up if George and Angie decided to make a Canary Cream Cake or something.


	2. A Speech and Toasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: In this chapter there is a mention of suicide that goes into some detail. Nothing gory, but potentionally emotionally triggering.

The first guest to arrive at the actual set time was Dennis Creevey. With his black dress robes and solemn face he made Hannah think of a Muggle cleric, but that impression lightened when he gave Hermione a hug and the dimples that had once been such a common sight appeared again.

“Dennis! I hear you’re a fully fledged Unspeakable now,” Hermione said into the tall young man’s shoulder. “I’m so happy for you!”

“Thanks, ‘Mione,” replied Dennis. “I’d tell you all about it, but, you know… Unspeakable.”

Hannah was happy to hear Dennis joke. After his brother’s death he’d silently buried himself in his studies, ending up with nine shining NEWTS. Then he’d immediately become an intern at the Department of Mysteries. Hannah had felt a certain kinship with him when they met in the corridors of the Ministry – he’d always looked just as miserable as she’d felt. And now that laughter and happiness were slowly seeping back into Hannah’s own life, she wished the same for Dennis.

Next to arrive was Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan, who showed up at the door carrying brooms and brandishing brand new engagement rings. Hannah didn’t know either of them very well, but Ron, Hermione and Dennis received the news with broad grins and muttered ‘finally!’s.

Then the woman Hannah knew as Cho Chang showed up and introduced herself to Hannah as now being Cho Xu. At that Hannah started to become a bit self conscious about her single status. (Dennis was single too, of course, but he was three years younger than her, so he hardly counted.) To shake the self consciousness off Hannah started to ask Cho more about her life nowadays. She learned that she was married to a Muggle man, worked as a Healer specialising in mental afflictions, and had a pair of two year old twins.

Hannah ‘ooh’ed and ‘aah’ed over pictures of the two toddlers, as more guests arrived. The children were genuinely very cute, but Hannah was also happy to get an excuse to not have to pay attention to every new arrival. That is, until a low chorus of murmur and gasp spread through the room, and she found herself turning towards the fireplace once again. There she saw Neville Longbottom brush soot from his dress robes after having just stepped out of the fireplace. Alone.

“Where is Luna?” Cho – who’d apparently turned to look as well – asked beside her. “Do you think she’s ill?”

Hannah shrugged. Together with most of the room she watched Hermione step up to Neville to ask him something in a hushed voice – most likely the same question Cho had just put to Hannah herself. Neville just shook his head, looking sad, and Hermione put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Hannah couldn’t help wondering whether the third most notorious war hero couple had broken up. She suddenly felt a lot less bad about being single. At least she hadn’t had her heart broken recently. (In fact it hadn’t been broken since Justin died, and he could hardly be held accountable for that.)

When Luna showed up some time later Hannah – and, she suspected, many others with her – was prepared to see her looking just as dejected as Neville. Instead she waltzed up to Dean Thomas, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth.

Hannah stifled a gasp and glanced at Neville, who somehow managed to wince and look wistful at the same time. Seamus Finnegan, for his part, didn’t look all that miffed that his fiancé was kissing someone other than him.

“Luna has never seen the point in confining herself to just one partner,” came a sudden whisper from behind Hannah.

Hannah jumped and turned around. Hermione was standing behind her with somewhat of a knowing smirk on her lips. With a blush Hannah realised that she had been staring.

“Luna has actually been with Dean for longer than Seamus has,” Hermione continued a little louder. “I think she’ll be living with them for her current stay in England, now that she’s moved out from the place she shared with Neville.”

* * *

Most of the guests had arrived by now, and people were walking around the room, making small talk. Hannah took the chance to compliment Dean Thomas on the picture of the badger, the lion and the eagle. He thanked her warmly, and with a nod towards Luna he said that she had helped with it. Together Hannah and Dean watched Luna walk up to Neville, who was sitting alone in a corner of the room. After a short exchange of words Neville gave her a weak smile and shook his head. Luna then kissed him lightly on the forehead and waltzed away.

Hannah turned back to Dean, who looked a little uncomfortable. To spare him the awkwardness of having to say something about the scene they’d just witnessed she gave him a quick nod and walked away. As she walked around the room aimlessly, Hannah considered going up to Neville herself. She’d just turned towards the corner of the room where Neville was seated when she was interrupted by her best friend blasting a window open with his wand and swishing in through it.

Ernie Macmillan had lost both his legs at the Battle of Hogwarts. He’d been saved from bleeding out by a quick ‘Finit Cruentis’ from Madam Pomfrey as she rushed past. If she’d had more time to care for him right then things might have been different, but as it was the curse scars were too nasty for him to get prostheses. Instead he had acquired a special permission from the Ministry to use a flying pillow to move around. It was large, baby blue, had a fall-safe charm and was almost as manoeuvrable as a broom. At the simple command “Give me wheels!” it transformed into a Muggle wheelchair, which allowed Ernie to move around inconspicuously in Muggle areas.

In the wizarding world he was all but inconspicuous. Right now he was hovering above the coffee table.

“Hello!” he boomed. “I hope I’m not the last one to arrive. I had an unfortunate run in with a hot air balloon on my way here.”

With that opening he was sure to have the room’s full attention for his story.

Just as Ernie finished telling them about how he’d dived into cover in a large rain cloud, getting thoroughly wet in the process, Harry and Ginevra Potter arrived with their newborn son. At that Hermione discreetly went through the fireplace to fetch baby Rose, and then everybody took part in cooing over the babies. Hannah ran her hand through Rose Weasley’s frizzy little tuft of red hair and laughed at the baby’s surprised mien. Being around children was a bittersweet joy. She wanted kids of her own so bad.

As they stood around the babies Parvati Patil entertained them with a story about her own four year old.

“Pritha was at her father’s – he’s a Muggle – and they were at the playground. Muggle kids play with small, brightly coloured plastic buckets in large boxes filled with sand, and Pritha has a purple bucket that she loves. But when she was playing with it this time it broke. Some nice parent lent her a new one, but that one was yellow, and Pritha _hates_ yellow. After she got it her dad looked away for a second, and when he looked back the new bucket was purple like the first one!

“Poor Vinay had to pretend that she’d lost the yellow one and give the other parent money to buy a new bucket. He called me on the telli-phone and was all ‘Couldn’t she just mend her own instead?’ but I guess that’s how it is with young magic. It’s not the most rational thing. And I’m sure there’s more to come now that she’s started. It almost makes me wish she’d be a bit slower in her development.”

But Parvati was beaming with pride, so nobody took that last sentence very seriously.

At half past six the last guests finally arrived; George Weasley and Angelina Johnson came in through the fireplace half hidden beneath two huge, unmarked boxes (which they wouldn’t let anyone look into).

Then they all finally sat down to eat.

* * *

“Who do we have to thank for the tasty nourishment?” Seamus Finnegan asked a little later, his mouth filled with pork loin.

As he spoke he looked expectantly at Ron, who turned to look at Hermione, who turned to look at Hannah, who blushed and looked down at her plate.

“It was a… joint effort,” said Hermione. “I made a mess in the kitchen and Hannah here somehow turned it into food. I suspect transfiguration.”

Everybody laughed, and nobody listened to Hannah’s insistence that she’d just given the food some finishing touches, and that she’d put too little salt in the sauce besides.

Hannah’s dinner partner was Terentius Boot, and the two of them spent most of the dinner talking about the magical properties of different types of wood. Terry’s interest was from a wand-making perspective, while Hannah had always loved Herbology. They also talked about food magic together with some of the other guests. Then Parvati Patil tapped her wineglass with her wand, turning it into a small bird. Its song caught the attention of the room, and everybody fell quiet as Parvati rose to speak.

“Fellow members of the original Dumbledore’s Army,” she began. “When I look around this table, I see many dear friends, and also some faces that I don’t see as often. But that doesn’t matter, because everyone here, close friend or not, is part of something incredible.

“We who sit here today are a group of people who came together to study Defence Against the Dark Arts when our teacher wouldn’t let us. We took the name of ‘Army’ as a joke. But when a time that we actually had to defend ourselves against Dark wizards and witches, we were strong enough to stand up and become an army for real.

“But we didn’t just become an army. In time we became something more. Something deeper. Many of you were in my year at Hogwarts. Do you remember what Minerva McGonagall said when she welcomed us there, the first of September 1991? She said that our House would be ‘something like your family within Hogwarts’. To me, Dumbledore’s Army became something like that too. When I look at the people in this room, that’s what I see. I see _family_.

“And everybody in this family was changed by the War.”

Parvati made a dramatic pause. Hannah thought about Dennis Creevey’s transformation from pixie-like and mischievous to silent and serious. She thought about Ernie, whose pompousness had turned into a jocular joviality, worn as armour. And she thought about herself; about how different _her_ life would have been if her mother had still been alive, if Justin had still been alive.

Parvati’s voice was more strained as she continued.

“I’m sure you all know that my best friend Lavender Brown ended her own life two years after the Battle of Hogwarts. But I refuse to sake that she _took_ her own life; it had already been taken from her by a man named Fenrir Greyback. The wounds he gave her were too deep to ever quite heal, but she struggled through pain and nightmares. She wanted to help prevent what had happened to her from ever happening again. She got as far as starting Auror Training, but her fatigue and pain stopped her from getting through it.”

Parvati made another pause. When she had talked about what Fenrir Greyback had done to her friend everyone had been able to hear her hatred and pain. When she began speaking again her voice was all tenderness.

“When Lavender turned fourteen I gave her a set of crystal phials for Potions class, the most beautiful set I could find. Before Lavender died, she placed those phials around her, filled with all her best memories. Three of these memories are memories of Dumbledore’s Army.

“The first of those is the last ever lesson we had together  in the Room of Requirement during the Year of Umbridge. Do you remember? In it we are practising the Patronus Charm, and all these beautiful pearly creatures are floating about the room. Lavender is watching them with awe. And then Harry says ‘They’re not supposed to be pretty, they’re supposed to protect you.’”

Parvati made a pause as Harry made a face and subdued laughter swept across the table.

“I made my old lark Patronus for the first time that day. It was one of Lavender’s favourite memories even though she still couldn’t make one herself back then. Even though that’s when we got caught.

“The second memory is the last meeting we had before Christmas in the Year of the War, right after we made the ‘Dumbledore’s Army, Still Recruiting’ graffiti in the Entrance Hall. The meeting is supposed to be about how we can support DA during the holidays, but we’re spending most of it giving each other Christmas gifts instead. And all the gifts are candy, because Honeydukes was the only shop we were still allowed to visit in Hogsmeade. For the first time in a long while we’re allowing ourselves to feel hopeful, because it’s Christmas and we’re going home to our families.”

Hannah remembered that day, of course, but for her the memory had always been tainted by what came after: Death Eaters abducted Luna on the train home, and the letters from Justin stopped coming.

“The last memory is from those last weeks before the Battle, when most of us were living in the Room. It’s late, and Lavender has just won a game of Wizard Skittles. Then Susan suggests we practise the Patronus Charm again, and Lavender makes a corporeal Patronus for the first time in her life… her beautiful marten… my Patronus is one now.”

Parvati briefly closed her eyes, maybe blinking back tears. Hannah found she had some tears of her own running down her cheeks.

“For Lavender, and I think for us all, Dumbledore’s Army was the thing that made the War bearable. We all have memories from our time together that will stay with us till the day we die. When I see us here now, still a family after all these years, I do not feel that her death was worth it – never! – but I do feel that I am among people who understand.”

Parvati fell quiet again, except for the sound of some deep, steadying breaths.

“Finally, I just want to thank Padma for helping me write this speech, and propose a toast… for Lavender…” At the word ‘toast’ Parvati’s voice broke, and at ‘Lavender’ she started to cry in earnest.

Hannah was close enough to hear Parvati sob “I just miss her _so much_ …” into her twin’s dress robes as the people around the table raised their glasses “To Lavender Brown!”

From that point, conversation around the table became more serious and subdued. It was always like that with the War; no one wanted to be the first one to bring it up, but everybody still needed to talk about it. They probably always would.

Every now and then someone would rise to make a toast for a fallen friend. They toasted to Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey and Anthony Goldstein. Hannah cried again when Ernie made a toast to Justin. Then, with her eyes on Hermione, Cho Xu made a toast ‘for fighting bravely at the Battle of Hogwarts’ to Marietta Edgecombe, who was the only living original DA member (other than the coward Zacharias Smith) that wasn’t at the party. Everybody, including Hermione, toasted to her.

With the barrier for toasting to living people down, Luna made a toast to Neville, which Hannah thought was a nice gesture. Neville responded with a toast back to Luna. Then, when they’d almost finished eating, Padma Davies made a toast to Harry Potter. As if to assure that for once the toast to him wouldn’t be the last, Harry then rose with baby Albus in his arms.

“I was going to give a speech,” he said, “but this little fellow here didn’t leave me any time to write one. And nothing I could say could ever compare to Parvati’s speech anyway. Still, I’d like to propose a toast to the man Ginny and I named this second son of ours after. To Albus Dumbledore!”

“Albus Dumbledore,” echoed the table.

At that Ginny rose to stand as well, her glass raised.

“And to his Army!” she said.

“Dumbledore’s Army!”


	3. The Build-a-Cake Competition and Something New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: talk about depression and trauma.

Everybody finished the last of their food in silence. Then, suddenly, George Weasley jumped up on his chair with a playful smile.

“As Harry here failed to make dessert, the honour instead fell to me and Angelina,” he said. “But we didn’t really make any either… Instead, let me present to you Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes newest product: The ‘Build-a-Cake’!”

George pointed with his wand towards the two large, unmarked boxes that he and Angelina had brought with them, and cake ingredients _cascaded_ out. Lots and lots of ingredients. Each box was soon surrounded by around fifty different multicoloured blobs floating in mid-air.

Further down the table Angelina stood up on her chair as well.

“And what better way to test a new product than with a cake-making competition?” she asked rhetorically.

Lee Jordan hooted his agreement. Angelina gave him a quick smile before she went on.

“We’ve divided you into two teams.” She waved her wand. A large ‘1’ appeared over one box and a large ‘2’ over the other. At the same time smaller versions of the numbers appeared in front of everybody seated at the table; Hannah was in team number 2, apparently.

“The rules are as follows: The teams will make one cake each. You can use anything from your box to make the cake, but nothing else. Everything in the boxes is enchanted to keep the shape you put it in. George and I will choose the winning cake based on taste – both literal and figurative! You have twenty minutes. Got it?”

“Yes!” everybody cried out together.

“All right then,” Angelina said with a glance over at George, who’d just charmed a bunch of blankets in the room to work as a sort of screen between the two boxes. Together they yelled “Three… two… one… GO!”

The two teams rushed towards the boxes. As her team grouped around their box, Hannah saw that other than herself, it consisted of her old Hufflepuff classmate Susan, former Ravenclaws Padma Davies and Michael Corner, and a bunch of old Gryffindors; other than Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and Dean, who Hannah knew reasonably well, they also had Lee Jordan and Katie Bell.

Everybody immediately started to put their fingers into the different ingredient blobs to taste them. They did this in silence for half a minute, humming happily over the different tastes. Then Lee Jordan got himself together and suggested they build a cake shaped like Hogwarts Castle. There was a murmur of agreement, until Dean Thomas pointed out that such an intricate shape would take more than twenty minutes to complete.

Ginny Potter made everybody laugh with her suggestion that they should make a cake of Umbridge in her cell Azkaban. Other suggestions included a hog’s head, to commemorate the pub where the DA was first formed, or the member list that they’d written their names on that day. But they didn’t come up with an idea that everyone was happy with until Katie Bell brought their attention to a pearly white frosting, which was enchanted to shimmer, and tasted _delicious_. Hannah couldn’t think of any cake to use it for except for wedding cakes, but when Susan saw it she immediately suggested that they should make a Patronus cake. Everybody agreed that that was a great idea. Ron brought up Harry’s famous stag Patronus as a possibility, but just like with the Hogwarts cake they realised it would be too complicated. Instead they went with Padma Davies’ idea to make the Patronus a marten in honour of Lavender Brown.

Half of the team started working on the marten design, while the other half – the one with Hannah in it – tried to decide which of all the mouth-watering ingredients they would use.

“What would a Patronus taste like?” Hannah pondered out loud as she went through the different fillings.

Katie Bell blurted out ‘happy but serene’, which Michael Corner translated to ‘fresh, sweet and mild’. With that as her guide Hannah picked out vanilla ice cream, puréed pears, and elder blossom flavouring. She mixed the flavouring with the pears, and then alternated between the ice cream and the pears on different layers, separated – on Ron’s suggestion – by thin coats of white chocolate.

With only a few minutes left, Dean Thomas shaped the cake into a curled up marten. Together they put the frosting on, carefully cutting a pattern of hair into it. Ginny Potter then charmed the cake to wave its tail slowly, and blink every now and then, and with only one minute to go Lee Jordan rushed up with silver hundreds-and-thousands that he’d ground into a fine powder, which he charmed to form a small cloud around the cake.

At the very last second Hermione remembered a nifty old household spell she’d learned from Molly Weasley, which made the cake reform into a smaller version of itself every time a slice was cut from it. (Hannah made sure to memorise it; she knew she’d use that spell a lot in the future.)

* * *

The other team had built a cake shaped like a Galleon, but instead of ‘Gringotts Bank’ it read ‘Dumbledore’s Army 10 Years!’ at the top. The serial number was the date of the DA’s founding, and the whole cake was covered in a layer of actual gold leaf! It looked _amazing_.

As the two teams stood admiring each other’s handiwork a Hannah heard a soft sniffle. Soon Parvati was full out crying again, looking at the marten-shaped Patronus cake.

“It-it’s lovely,” she said, smiling between the tears. “It’s just like Lavender’s…”

Hermione promised to save her the last of the cake so she could take it home under a preservation charm.

Then they all sat down in their old seats at the table to enjoy the cakes. As Hannah took her first bite of the Galleon cake she discovered that its main filling was a golden jam with a rich, sweet taste and a lot of small seeds in it, which gave it an enjoyable texture. The taste was maybe a bit too rich for the rest of the cake, but Hannah couldn’t wait to experiment with it in her own cooking. She asked Terry, who had been in the other team, what sort of berry the jam had been made from.

“The label said ‘knotberry’,” he replied, “but Luna called it ‘cloudberry’. She said she’d had it before, when she was travelling in Norway. I’d never heard about it before. We just chose it for the golden colour, really. ”

Hannah hadn’t heard about either cloudberry or knotberry before either, but now that she had she was soon lost in daydreams about mixing the jam with cheese, heating it up to serve it with ice cream, or baking a panna cotta with it…

When Hannah came out of her jam-related fantasies she noticed that Terry had started to talk with Padma Davies. Hannah winced; she always felt inadequate around Padma. At Hogwarts Hannah had known that Padma was a top student, of course, but she’d really just been another student that Hannah never spoke much too, even in the DA. It was at the Ministry that Hannah had started comparing herself to the other woman, and found herself lacking. They had started working there at about the same time, but when Hannah was promoted to a post in the Public Information Services Office, Padma was already a member of the New Council. Now Padma occupied the prestigious Fifth Chair, and Hannah was a barmaid… and it didn’t help that Padma was stunningly beautiful and married to a famous actor. 

Terry and Padma’s conversation seemed to be a typical Ravenclaw affair, with terms like ‘Arithmantic properties’ and ‘high level Transfiguration’ thrown around. To save herself from embarrassment Hannah decided to speak with Dennis Creevey and Parvati Patil instead. Parvati was as beautiful as her sister, of course, but somehow she was much more approachable (especially now that her eyes were red from crying so much). Parvati and Dennis told Hannah about a great theatre performance of The Witches of Avonwick that they’d seen together recently. As they talked Hannah wondered silently to herself if the two of them were dating, but she didn’t ask. She was sick and tired of being asked the same question when she talked about Ernie, and didn’t want to risk causing them the same annoyance.

* * *

When the cakes were finished (except for the small remainder of the Patronus cake that Parvati was to bring home with her), George and Angelina went off to a corner of the room to conspire together. The whole table seemed to hold their breath until they returned.

“We have an announcement to make,” George proclaimed. “Despite a consistent execution and the clearest link to the DA in the losing cake...”

“...the prize goes to a perfect _marriage_ of taste and form – Team 2’s Patronus Cake!” Angelina finished.

Hannah’s team erupted into cheers, and Hannah even gave a small hoot of her own through a wide smile. The other team clapped good-naturedly and Angelina wolf-whistled.

“And now I have _another_ important announcement to make,” George said as the cheering died down. “As you may know, my brother Ron has left Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes to work full-time as an Auror _again_ , the traitor.”

“That’s not true! I still help develop new products,” Ron interrupted. He tried to sound indignant, but Hannah could see that he was smiling.

“Sorry, I cannot hear you,” George yelled back, pointing to the earless side of his head. “Anyway. To replace him, Angelina has stepped up to a leading position in the business – and I don’t know why I never threw my little brother out so she could replace him earlier!”

Hannah couldn’t help sniggering. She didn’t know George and Angelina very well, but like everybody else in wizarding Britain she’d followed their love story in the papers. Angelina had played Quidditch for the Appelby Arrows until she suddenly fell pregnant, a little more than a year ago. The whole thing had been quite the scandal, at least according to Witch Weekly, and there had been much speculation about who the father could be. The revelation that it was George Weasley brought headlines like ‘Quidditch Player Betrays Dead War Hero with His Own Twin Brother’ (which Hannah found quite ridiculous – moving on after the War was hard enough without being shamed for it by Rita Skeeter). When Gerorge and Angelina named their son after said ‘dead war hero’ it had seemed like the papers hadn’t known _what_ to print.

“All was well,” George went on, “until we realised that this turn of events means that we’ll have to rename the shop ‘Weasley and Johnson’s Wizard Wheezes’, and that just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it…  so we decided to solve this horrendous problem by throwing out the ‘Johnson’, and making Angelina a Weasley instead. We’re getting married!”

“Well, the fact that we have a kid together since exactly five months ago might have played a part too,” Angelina added with a chuckle.

Everybody cheered again, and after that they of course had to fetch little baby Fred through the fireplace, so everybody could admire him. Hannah wasn’t among the people flocking around the child, though; she didn’t want to crowd him. She wandered over to the sofas instead, but once seated she couldn’t help looking over at the proud parents after all, and when she did she noticed George’s eyes starting to water. Soon he was crying silently with little Fred in his arms. As Hannah watched she saw Angelina take the baby from him, and Lee Jordan guide him to a chair.

Then Hannah felt someone sit down beside her on the sofa, and turned to see Alicia Spinnet, another close friend of George’s and Angelina’s, and Lee Jordan’s girlfriend.

“He’s been like that since… you know,” Alicia said, nodding towards George. She sounded close to tears herself. “One moment he’s cracking a joke, the next he’s crying. At least he doesn’t just disapparate away any more… He and Angie will probably go home soon, though.”

She was right. George and Angelina left with their son, and Lee came over to sit with Hannah and Alicia in the sofa. Some moments later Ernie came over too, hovering beside them on his baby blue pillow. The four of them had a nice chat together for a while (except for when Lee asked if Hannah and Ernie were dating), but when Ernie soared away to grab some cookies the conversation took a turn to the physical. Lee and Alicia had joked that they should have brought their one-year-old along to the party, what with the high demand for babies, but it was clear that they in fact cherished the child-free evening; Alicia was soon all but sitting in Lee’s lap, and he had his hand in her hair. They looked deeply (and somewhat intoxicatedly) into each other’s eyes.

Uncomfortable with this development, Hannah looked around the room. Lee and Alicia wasn’t the only couple on the verge of making out. In the next sofa over Susan was leaning far into Luna Lovegood’s personal space, and she had her hand on Luna’s knee. Hannah didn’t think Luna would be sleeping at Seamus and Dean’s after all. And just as when Luna had kissed Dean, Hannah’s eyes involuntarily searched out Neville Longbottom, to see how he was reacting.

Neville wasn’t reacting at all, it turned out – he had his back towards the sofa. He and Ginny Potter sat chatting together in a corner. It looked like a somewhat private conversation, but Hannah was too eager to get out of her awkward situation to care. She went over to them.

* * *

“Oh, good!” Ginny said when Hannah arrived. “You take care of Neville for me, will you? I have to find Harry and Albus so we can get home and _sleep_.”

When she rose from her chair it was clear that she wasn’t even close to recovered from her pregnancy yet, but as she limped away she took the time to turn around and wink at Neville. It made Neville colour slightly, and when Hannah understood the implication she felt herself blush as well. She resisted an urge to look over to the sofa suite to see how far along Susan and Luna had gotten by now, and instead sat down in the chair that Ginny had just left.

“I like your braids,” Neville said, just when the silence was about to get awkward. “Just like old times, eh?" 

“Yeah, they really bring out the nervous eleven-year-old in me, don’t they?” Hannah replied with a jittery laugh, twirling one of said braids between her fingers. She really _was_ nervous, she realised. How ridiculous.

Hannah and Neville had always been friendly at Hogwarts; first because they shared an interest in Herbology, and then in the DA they became actual friends. And then, in that fateful seventh year, Hannah had had quite a crush on Neville. She was actually dating Justin back then, but he’d been off hiding from snatchers and helping younger muggleborns and their families flee the country. It had been too dangerous for them to send too many letters, and even though she missed and worried about him constantly it hadn’t really felt like a real relationship anymore.

Still Hannah had felt terribly guilty about the whole thing (even though she definitely hadn’t been the only DA member with a crush on one of the leaders), and when the war ended and it became clear that Justin hadn’t survived the guilt had become suffocating. She couldn’t help wondering if she’d been daydreaming about snogging Neville in the Room of Requirement when her boyfriend was murdered. In her guilt and sorrow she’d started to avoid most of her friends, but none of them more than Neville. And what with him being celebrated as a war hero and pulled into Auror duty he’d hardly seemed to even notice…

“So, I hear you work at the Leaky Cauldron now…” Neville said.

Hannah realised they’d been silent for too long again.

“Yeah…” she answered, a little defensively. Her job was a bit of a touchy subject for her.

“Why?” Neville asked bluntly. “You worked very hard to get that job at the Ministry. I thought it was your dream.”

“It was my _dad’s_ dream,” Hannah said bitterly. Then she realised what she’d just said and clasped a hand to her mouth. “I mean, er… Well. _I_ used to dream about being a Healer, actually, but I only got an A in my Potions O.W.L, so my mother suggested I’d try to get a Ministry job instead. She wanted me to follow in her footsteps, I guess… When she was murdered my dad became obsessed with the idea of me working at the Ministry.”

“Oh,” said Neville.

He looked at Hannah sympathetically, and something in his eyes made her feel like he truly understood. It was almost frighteningly easy to tell him things that she’d never really talked to anyone else about before.

“Dad moved to Hogsmeade after Mum died,” she continued, unprompted. “He couldn’t stand to live alone in our old house, and he wanted to be close to me when I was forced to go back to Hogwarts. After the War I moved in with him, and after a while I started working for Madam Rosmerta at The Three Broomsticks. Just to get out of the House, really. I just… couldn’t force myself to go back to Hogwarts right then. But Dad always went on and on about how ‘this isn’t what your mother would have wanted’, and in the end I let him talk me into getting my N.E.W.T.s and that godforsaken Ministry job…”

Hannah fell silent. Just thinking about her time at the Ministry made her feel like she couldn’t breathe.

“But then you just left?” Neville asked. There was an oddly hopeful tone in his voice.

“Well, not exactly... One day I just… couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t read, and I absolutely could not go back to work. The Healers couldn’t find anything wrong with me, but I was sure I was going to die. I just _lay_ there for almost three weeks; the Healers had to feed me by magic. Then one day I just got up and went to the Three Broomsticks to beg Madam Rosmerta to take me back. She… she couldn’t, but she promised to recommend me to Tom at The Leaky Cauldron instead. And now here I am. A barmaid.”

“What did your dad say?”

“He didn’t say anything; I didn’t let him. I told him that unless he shut up about the Ministry he was going to lose me, one way or another… And then he cried and I cried and now we’re really polite to each other and basically only talk about the weather when I visit.”

Neville smiled sympathetically at her and Hannah had to tilt her head back and take some calming breaths to keep from crying.

“You’re very brave,” Neville said suddenly.

Hannah’s eyes snapped back down from the ceiling to stare at him instead. Brave? Hadn’t he heard a word she was saying? She shook her head in disbelief, and Neville stretched out a hand to pat her on the shoulder. That was when the tears started to fall after all.

“Oh, _Hannah_ ,” Neville said. “Do you… do you need something? A handkerchief? Something to…”

He fell silent, raised halfway from his chair. Hannah looked past him, into the room, and saw Susan and Luna stumble toward the mantelpiece with their arms around each other, giggling and kissing.

“Oh, that,” she said. “Yeah, I was hoping to do some catching up with Susan today, but I don’t think that’ll happen…”

It was an attempt at a joke, and Neville rewarded it with an attempt at a smile. He’d sunken back down into his chair, and now it was Hannah’s turn to pat _him_ on the shoulder.

“Life never happens the way you think it will,” she said. She somehow managed to sound less bitter than she’d thought she would. “I’m so sorry about you and Luna.”

“Thank you,” Neville replied, looking down into his lap. “It’s… It’s all right, really. I’m sad, of course, but I think both of us knew it’d never work out, not in the long run. We’re too different. She wants to see the world and have adventures every day; I want to settle down with someone who wants to be with _me_ every day, heh. We’ll still always be friends, and I’ll never think of our relationship as a failure, but… Well, I think I’m ready for something new.”

He lifted his eyes to Hannah’s, and the moment suddenly became unbearably intense. Hannah had to look away, but she was still smiling. Maybe she too was ready for something new.


	4. Epilogue

A little more than a month after the party a disgruntled owl arrived to The Leaky Cauldron carrying a huge stack of _Witch Weekly_. When Hannah relieved it of its burden it flopped down on the counter and refused to move. After paying the poor bird and Hannah offered it a bowl of honey water as a sort of apology for having had to carry such a heavy load. The owl nibbled thankfully at her finger and began to drink.

Hannah was supposed to lay the _Witch Weekly_ magazines out in the rooms of the inn for the guests to read, but she didn’t want to leave the room until she’d made sure that the owl would be all right. So she sat down at a table and began to leaf idly through one of the newly arrived magazines. Then she turned a page and let out a loud ‘yelp!’

This startled the owl so much that it took off to the rafters, flapping so wildly that it overturned the bowl. Honey water started to spill out over the counter, dripping down on the floor, but Hannah didn’t notice it. She didn’t notice the owls indignant hoots up at the ceiling either. She was completely engrossed in a short little article in the _Witch Weekly_ ‘Gossip Section’:

**War Hero seen with blonde bombshell**

_It seems a certain famous Auror has a thing for blondes! Two months ago Witch Weekly was the first to report on the break-up between Neville Longbottom and (blonde!) long-time girlfriend Luna Lovegood. Now Mr Longbottom has already been seen together with a new flame. Is our favourite snake beheader on the rebound, perhaps?_

_According to our sources the blonde beauty in question is a certain Ms Hannah Abbott. Ms Abbott was present at the battle of Hogwarts, and like other participants who didn't particularly distinguish themselves, she received an Order of Merlin 3rd Class. (Mr Longbottom holds an OoM_ 1st _Class, of course.) After giving up on a promising Ministry career Ms Abbott now works at the Leaky Cauldron in London. Our readers may recognise her as the bar wench who poured their drink the last time they visited Diagon Alley._

_As this fling occurred so shortly after the end of an almost seven year old relationship we here at WW find it unlikely that it'll last very long. But it’s surely good news for all single (and blonde!) witches that one of Wizarding Britain’s most eligible bachelors seems ready to ‘hunt the Snitch’ once again. Maybe one of our readers will be the next witch to grace the arm of the comely Mr. Longbottom?_

The article was, of course, written by a certain Rita Skeeter, and it was accompanied by a small picture of Hannah who laughed, and touched picture-Neville’s arm as they walked down Diagon Alley together. Hannah stared at this miniature version of herself, shaking her head in disbelief. She didn’t know if she should laugh or cry about the whole thing. What she _did_ know was that Ernie would never let her live this down…

And indeed; one and a half year later Ernie, to much laughter, brought up the article and its assurances that this would only be a short-lived fling in his speech at Hannah’s and Neville’s wedding.


End file.
